Page 75 of Deviants
“Really?” She tried to mock my look and failed.
“I’ll tell you about that another day. In the meantime, why don’t you get cleaned up? You have clothes in the closet. Come down when you’re ready.” I kissed her cheek and reluctantly moved away.
I could sit and talk with her for hours. Right then, though, I just wanted to talk to my brother.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
When his door clicked shut, I went to the closet and peeked inside. He’d had a whole section of grunge clothes and a few dresses brought in. He was always paying attention to the little things.
Smoothing my fingers over all the different fabrics, I thought over everything he’d just told me. The ache I felt for him was both physical and mental.
The Shiloh was a like a round metal water tower without the legs. There were three of them on the edge of The Order’s property.
They had one small circular window in the ceiling, dirt floors, and no toilets. I have no idea what my state of mind would be like if I’d been locked away as he had. I knew things couldn’t have been good for him, but he’d had it far worse than me. And now, David wanted to be his friend? Fuck that.
I wouldn’t pretend I knew what any of that was like. His admittance to killing his own mother didn’t even surprise me. Maybe that should’ve bothered me far more than it did, but I couldn’t force myself to conjure up feelings that weren’t there.
All I had was this bubbling fissure on my heart of pain, and heartache for the little boy he’d never got to be and what was done to him. I understood why he didn’t talk about it.
There was nothing pleasant in reliving those memories, and I didn’t need specific details to make the right assumptions.
I grabbed a simple black t-shirt dress, some knee-high boots, and finally some damn underwear from a drawer.
His bathroom was something from a dream. It was dark and warm, comforting and clean. I hadn’t sat down in a bathtub in months, so I went straight for the big ass soak box in the middle of the room.
Kicking off my shoes and clothes, I padded across the cool slate floor to the vanity, where a basket of bubbles sat. I’d never had bubbles before. I looked in one of the double mirrors as I waited for the tub to fill, trying to compare what I’d been to what I’d become.
The thing about mirrors is that they only showed us reflections of how we saw ourselves. They didn’t show what was inside us.
I used to want people to believe I had a light inside me, and in doing so, I made myself empty.
I knew the woman staring back at me was far from perfect, but at least I was no longer at odds with the stranger she’d been.
Maybe in a different world, I would have been fortunate enough to have a life full of laughter and love from the beginning. My hands wouldn’t have been permanently stained red.
But I didn’t, and I was okay with that, because I would have never belonged in that world. It didn’t matter who my mother was, because I never knew her, and nothing would change that.
I didn’t care who my father was, because I’d never had one. I felt nothing, only relief that I wasn’t an incestuous fuck toy, although that didn’t make me feel better about what was done to me.
Submerging myself in warm water and a variety of bubbles, I leaned my head on the rim of the tub and shut my eyes.
It felt good being able to think clearly without going into a tailspin.
My mind wasn’t so much of a chaotic war zone with the animal inside me wide awake and learning to thrive, no longer locked in a cage. I was exactly where I needed to be. It took a lot of dead bodies to get here, but I’d do it all over again if I had to.
I was born a freak, now turned into a deviant Savage.
I was the devil’s queen.
The devil was my king.
I’d found my peace in his world of darkness.
I woke up beneath a warm comforter and a semi-dark room. I hadn’t meant to fall asleep; I’d sat down for two minutes after getting out of the tub.
I could hear voices—lots of voices.
Hopping out of bed, I quickly dressed in the clothes still in the bathroom. My skin smelled like the variety of bubbles I’d dumped in my tub water. After a quick brush of my teeth and hair, I smoothed on black eyeshadow and left the room.
